Mapping the Feet

Reflexology is where this entire journey started for me. I didn't intend to work with feet; I didn't even consider it an option until I had hit a personal wall in my bodywork practice back in 2010. I was working too hard and blew out my shoulder. I subsequently threw myself into workshops on massage technique and tried to learn how to work smarter to save my body and better serve my clients. Exploring other manual therapies, I realized that they were mostly, with a few quality exceptions, trying to force their will onto the tissues of the body. I knew that the body's pain was a message that begged to be listened to, not simply hammered on until it relented. I needed to find a practice that listened and addressed the body's call for help and that spark of a desire dragged me into my first Reflexology class against my will.

The flyer for that fateful Reflexology class, I had actually thrown in the trash. Seriously, that's what happened. It was my partner Richard who literally reached into the trash, pulled the flyer back out, handed it back to me and said the magic words of, "Try it. You might like it." At the time, I didn't expect to find everything I was searching for within the feet, but I did end up going to that class. The experience taking the course was average, nothing special, but the practical side of the work is what blew me away. Taking the foot techniques back to the table, I witnessed a first-hand account of the body's palpable response to the hands-on application of pressure when targeting the sensitive nerve endings on the feet.

From back problems to digestive upset to hormone imbalances, all symptoms were touched by the power of the foot reflexes. Pain that I wasn't able to influence through manual therapy was melted away when I addressed the feet. As a mysterious bonus, clients were reporting emotional relief, habit cessation and profound inspiration during our sessions. The work that I had thought was irrelevant was in fact the first real glimpse of what I was looking for all along – a modality that allowed me to bring balance to the entire person. From those first moments, I began to develop my Reflexology practice with the feet as my sole focus (that was a pun).

Diving head first into a formal certification in Reflexology and sitting for two national Reflexology exams through the American Reflexology Certification Board, I began to max out my credentials. Still thirsty for more knowledge, I started to explore how others practiced the art and science of foot work. By chance, I came across a small book on foot reading. The book was less than stellar and the content, I would later find, was largely a reprint from the works of others; but a basic idea was conveyed: The reflexes for the physical body aren't the only thing that can be mapped onto the feet. Additional research revealed to me that there was an entire sub-culture of foot assessment that no other Reflexology literature had mentioned.

The painful fact emerged that Reflexology is a myopic technique; only concerned with the hands-on manipulation of the reflexes. The primal idea of press-reflex-fix-issue pervades Reflexology literature and there is little to no mention of assessing those same reflexes – let alone considering the mental/emotional aspect of the feet. Instead, there are only rumored tales of expert Reflexologists who are able to truly see into the body through the foot reflexes after many years of practice – rarely do these Reflexologists explain their approach or document their work. What Reflexology has developed into is a limited definition that defaults to a manual therapy. In some states, Reflexology cannot be practiced without extensive licensure, which further ignores the practical application of assessing the very reflexes they are then licensed to apply pressure to.

I wish to correct this trajectory. Instead of blind technique and operating by routines based on concepts such as press-point-fix-issue, Reflexologists and indeed the general public should be taught foot reading; adding how to appropriately assess the physical and internal signs of stress through the window of the extremities to the conversation. This new approach will emphasize and implement an active dialogue between someone assessing another or self-assessing, facilitated by the theories outlined in this text. Courageously listening to the body's voice is a missing element within the current Reflexology atmosphere. We could dramatically increase the value of Reflexology applications with the addition of assessment, or even creating a consultative approach that does not include manual therapies and relies strictly on lifestyle correction to achieve results is the needed alignment moving forward. Hence, this book was created in an effort to start a new dialogue within the Reflexology community.

The Origins of Reflexology

Essentially, the origins of Reflexology begin with a seminal concept that the body and its parts can be mapped onto the extremities. Different cultures have adopted and transformed this idea to include or exclude the surfaces of the tongue, face, eye, hands, the thumb alone, the feet and other surfaces. Each emergence of the Reflexology theory has its own reasoning and vocabulary behind the mapping diagrams and technique. However, the core idea remains the same: We have access to the whole through the part. A perfect book for this is Reflexology: Art, Science & History by Christine Issel, which I will let illuminate the exact dates and timelines independent of this work. We are more focused on the immediate theory of assessment here.

I will not attempt to explain the Eastern variations of Reflexology practice as they are not my purview. However, in the West, the popular re-emergence of Reflexology is credited to Dr. William Fitzgerald who practiced a technique he called Zone Therapy. Fitzgerald passed on his work to Dr. Joe Shelby Riley, who then passed it on to Eunice Ingham. Ingham created the modern interpretation of the reflexes on the feet and hands that we know as Reflexology today. Again, here we see the work has evolved to echo the body's likeness on the feet and hands. It is from the work of Ingham's lineage that I initially learned to practice the hands-on technique Reflexology.

The...